Former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst Dies After Falling From A Building

The 2019 winner of Miss USA pageant Cheslie Kryst has passed away at the age of 30 after falling from an apartment building in Manhattan, New York, as confirmed by the police; her death is most likely the result of a suicide and she was pronounced dead on West 42^nd Street, where her body was found at around 7am on Sunday morning. Only 10 months ago, Cheslie Kryst spoke of her fear that she was “running out of time to matter” and that she was being “trolled online”; unfortunately, it seemed that winning Miss USA at the age of 28 made her a target for ageist bullies.

Cheslie Kryst was found on the sidewalk beneath her apartment building in Hell’s Kitchen at 7:15am on Sunday; she was last seen on a 29^th floor terrace in the building where she lived alone on the ninth floor of the apartment. Her family and workplace, Extra, confirmed the passing on Sunday. Her colleague Billy Bush described the news as a “complete shock to us all”.

Many friends reacted shocked and said they did not know that Cheslie Kryst may be suffering from mental health issues. Publicly, she had never shared any struggles she may be going through; in 2019, Cheslie Kryst revealed that she often spoke with “a counsellor to keep her mind healthy”, but there was no hint on any form of distress.

Police sources have told Daily Mail that Cheslie Kryst had left a suicide note on her computer. They said, “The only person who really knows what happened went off the building. We’re doing what we can to investigate what’s left. Preliminarily, it doesn’t appear there’s any criminality to it. The prevailing theory is that it was a suicide. No evidence has come forward that would change that theory at this point. But we’re not ruling anything else out at this point.”

Cheslie Kryst worked on Extra as a correspondent, and she was the oldest person to have won Miss USA at the age of 28; she also “strayed from the norm with her passion for social justice”, as she was a trained lawyer and a Black Lives Matter advocate. She revealed in recent social media videos that she no longer wanted to practice law, due to getting sick of “micro-aggressions and a lack of diversity”. “In a video six days ago, she explained to a fan that she struggled to meet billable hours requirements, and that it felt like ‘trading in hours of my life in order to get paid’.”

Writing for Allure Magazine for her 30^th birthday 10 months ago, Cheslie Kryst said, “Each time I say, ‘I’m turning 30,’ I cringe a little. Sometimes I can successfully mask this uncomfortable response with excitement; other times, my enthusiasm feels hollow, like bad acting… turning 30 feels like a cold reminder that I’m running out of time to matter in society’s eyes — and it’s infuriating.”

After having won the pageant in 2019, some people had petitioned for the age limit to be lowered because they felt that Cheslie Kryst was too old. She was further “trolled on social media for her athletic body”. She said, “My challenge of the status quo certainly caught the attention of the trolls, and I can’t tell you how many times I have deleted comments on my social media pages that had vomit emojis and insults telling me I wasn’t pretty enough to be Miss USA or that my muscular build was actually a ‘man body’… After a year like 2020, you would think we’d learned that growing old is a treasure and maturity is a gift not everyone gets to enjoy. Far too many of us allow ourselves to be measured by a standard that some sternly refuse to challenge, and others simply acquiesce to because fitting in and going with the flow is easier than rowing against the current. I fought this fight before and it’s the battle I’m currently fighting with 30. How do I shake society’s unwavering norms when I’m facing the relentless tick of time? It’s the age-old question: What happens when ‘immovable’ meets ‘unstoppable’?”

If you are struggling, or know of someone struggling, with mental health problems, then do not hesitate to find help within your friends and family, as well as a health professional. Please call 116 123 for help, or write an email to jo@samaritans.org. You can also visit the website https://www.samaritans.org for further information. If you are outside of the UK, then follow THIS link to find all the mental health hotline numbers for help.